Verba @ McAWilliams.com

I live in Bray, I do not drive, I work in Dublin city center, I get the bus every day.

Now that I have established all of that, I would love to show you what I have to contend with each morning and evening getting to work and back home. I travel on the 84X, an express bus that I get on the N11, near the turn for the Enniskerry Road (or 29 bends) and on the way home I get off at the Honda garage across the road. In 2005 plans were put in place to create a Pedestrian Bridge to join the southern end of Bray to Enniskerry (across the N11) and last year at a cost of approx 4 million euro the bridge was opened. This made using the 84X, which runs along the N11 possible for me, I was thrilled.

It was my first time to walk down the Herbert road and experience what I am writing this blog about.

The bridge is fantastic and worth the money spent on it, it does not look out of place and gets people across the busy N11 safely, that is, if they can make it down to the bridge. You see, if you are coming from Ashton Wood, Richmond Park, Clover Hill, Herbert Park, Killarney Heights etc, you have to endure a walk taking your life into your own hands in order to get to the bridge, which was built to prevent fatalities. As you pass Ashton Wood the footpath ends, but thankfully, pedestrians do not have to walk along the bends of the Herbert Road towards the hairpin, but can walk down a mud track through overgrown forest, when you eventually make your way down, this “path”, you are greeted with the Herbert Road again, but there is still no path except for one a good bit down the road, and this is the part I love, on a corner.

I was taught never to cross the road on a bend or corner as young as 5 years of age, by my parents, in school, and even by the green cross code man on TV, yet Wicklow County Council seem oblivious to the fact that this is in fact a death trap. As mentioned the Herbert Road is full of bends with very short straights in between them, so by the time you have looked right to see if the road is clear then checked left to do the same, generally while checking right again to be sure you will find a car on top of you thats how quick they appear. The other thing we were taught at a young age was to listen for traffic, for starters thats damn hard with the N11 directly beside you and also because of the trees surrounding the road, dampening the sound further.

So why build a bridge that no one can safely access from Bray for that cost is beyond me! Only recently footpaths got relaid outside Clover Hill and the road got a resurfacing too, I believed this was the start of the work to make this walk safer, I was wrong, the work actually stopped exactly where the mud trail starts how typical.

During the winter months this is even worse with no street lighting to speak of and when wet, the path is treacherous and many’s the time I have seen people slip and fall backwards ruining there clothes going to work and causing themselves bruising at the same time. This is just not good enough and something needs to be done about it.

The other thing about all of this is that it is impossible for people with disabilities, the elderly or parents with prams/buggies, even young toddlers, to get near. The amazing thing is that the bridge has been built with accessibility in mind with a ramp going up to it on the Enniskerry side whereas to get up from the N11 to the Herbert Road on the Bray side you need to go all the way up to the church at the turn off for the Herbert Road and go along the footpath to the top of the bridge, yes its longer but it can be done safely, also this path was built the same time as the bridge, its just a shame it stops so short.

On the way home its pretty much the same in reverse, how nobody has been killed is beyond me! the road has a speed limit of 50km yet the cars are moving much quicker then that generally.

So I decided to Qik my walk up from the bus stop, this shows exactly what I am talking about. For those that don’t know Qik is a way of streaming live video to the web from your mobile phone, I will also say that I held the camera up to the side of me never holding it up to my face, obviously since the road is so dangerous I would not do something stupid like that, and it also explains why the picture is so jerky at times. I plan on getting in touch with as many people in the council that I can and would appeal to anybody living in the area to do the same. The Qik movie I took is only 8 minutes long I do hope you watch it and please, leave me a comment below with your thoughts!

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